


Before the Wedding

by DerpyMcButtface



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/M, Kids, Lost but not forgotton, more than twenty years after canon, the next generation?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 17:00:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2355854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DerpyMcButtface/pseuds/DerpyMcButtface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before her son’s wedding, Mako goes to talk to her future daughter-in-law, the Kaidanovskys’ daughter Viktoriya.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before the Wedding

**Author's Note:**

> no edit, just a verbal doodle.

Her wedding dress was four inches too short, but the bodice fit as perfectly as if it had been tailored for her. It was a simple dress, a sleeveless white sheath with a train as its sole adornment. No lace, no pearls: only some faded stains on the front of the skirt that no amount of dry-cleaning could remove.

  
As she sat in front of the cluttered vanity, two knocks sounded behind her. Vika did not turn around, but the door opened gently, pointing a single rectangle of light into the dark room. In the mirror’s reflection, she saw a familiar silhouette in the doorway.

  
“You shouldn’t be here. It’s bad luck,” Vika said, more out of a desire to get the older woman to leave than superstition.

  
Mako smiled, the wrinkles around her eyes creasing into their familiar folds. “For the groom to see, not for the mother-in-law,” she chided.

  
Vika was silent. In the hairspray-scented air, she sensed the Japanese woman approaching, the light from the hallway illuminating a gold band down her side.

  
“I was fourteen.” Mako stood behind her. “I went with my adopted father. We went to congratulate them after the ceremony, and that was the first time I met your parents in person.”

  
Vika’s lips felt dry under her blood-red lipstick. “Were they…”

  
“Just like you imagine. They were.”

  
A long, soft silence settled in again, as Vika stared down pensively. She had seen the footage many times, read the articles covering the event. The formal portrait was secure in the memorial museum. But to hear it from someone who had been there on that day, who saw, spoke with, the bride and groom who later became her mother and father, was living proof that there had been, to the world, a Sasha and Aleksis, a long time ago.

  
“Does it fit?” Mako finally asked. “The dress?”

  
Vika nodded. “It’s perfect.”

  
“Sasha’s wedding dress. I never thought we’d see it again.” She smiled, her face bittersweet. “You look just like your mother.”

  
“Thank you.”

  
Mako exhaled deeply, knowing Vika’s train of thought. She had been there herself, more than two decades ago. “I know they’d love to be here today, but more than that, this is what they fought for. This is what they believed in. Today.” She smiled and raised her hand, revealing a cloth drawstring bag. Her wrinkled hands worked its mouth open, and she drew out a single silver chain. Her calloused hands nimbly undid the clasp, and she draped it on Vika’s neck.

  
The Russian woman turned around in bemusement, her fingers reaching up to touch the warming metal.

  
Mako’s eyes lingered on the silver chain, and she laughed quietly. “It was my mother’s, and then mine. Today, it’s yours. Me and Raleigh, we always thought you were like a daughter. This is just making it official,” Mako said, smiling, and then told her quietly, “Yancy is a lucky boy. But please be patient with my son. He’s young and he doesn’t understand the world we lived in, during the Kaiju Wars. But he loves you. He loves you, and he wants most of all to make you happy.”

  
Vika stayed silent, but the way she closed her eyes for a few seconds was enough. “He must have gotten his goodness from you,” she finally said.

  
Mako put a hand on her shoulder, the greatest degree of physical contact she knew Vika would permit. “I’ll see you at the ceremony.” She exited the room, closing the door behind her just as gently as she had come in, enclosing the bride in cool darkness once again.

 


End file.
